


In The Night

by bottledyarn



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Kidnapping, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 11:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/572667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bottledyarn/pseuds/bottledyarn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Louis are kidnapped, while Zayn, Liam, and Niall are left in the media-police crossfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr, gibberish-fiction.

Louis heard a creak and sat up, knowing that sound well. Most of the floorboards were perfect, silent to tread on, but one just down the hall from his room always creaked. He froze, regretting having left his door open. He shifted his head slightly to see the clock.

Three thirty two a.m. 

Why hadn’t he heard someone break in, if that was what this was? It had to be Harry, sleepwalking or getting something from the kitchen.

“Harry?” Louis called hesitantly, propping himself up on his elbow.

Louis could barely make out the shape of a person as they came in. Louis had convinced himself that it was only Harry, so he didn’t move.

“What are you doing up?”

The person suddenly clamped a hand to Louis’ mouth, holding a damp rag against his lips. He tried not to breath, tried to call out and warn Harry, but the liquid- probably chloroform- overwhelmed him and everything went dark.

When Louis woke up, it was to a room almost as dark as his unconsciousness. He blinked a few times, woozy from the drugs in his system. He was pretty disoriented, trying to stand and finding himself unable. He realized his hands were bound behind his back, his elbows tied tightly so he couldn’t bring his hands under his feet and to the front. His legs were crossed and bound to each other at the ankles.

Whatever this thing was, it was serious, and if conditions didn’t change, he wasn’t getting out of this. As his vision adjusted, he could just barely make out a figure across the room, sitting against the wall and slumped over their outstretched legs.

The room jostled violently…a truck, then. The figure shifted slightly and let out a groan.

“Harry?” Louis called quietly, taking a guess. Half of him hoped that it wouldn’t be Harry, but a tiny bit of him wanted to not be alone in this.

“Louis?” the figure unfolded slightly, revealing a distinct head. Harry sounded hoarse and terrified, which was fair enough. “Are you okay?”

“Well, in the scheme of things, no. But I’m generally healthy.”

“Me, too. What do you think is happening?”

“Kidnapping? I suppose we’d be worth a lot of ransom…” Louis said. “Maybe it’s all a joke.”

Harry made a noncommittal grunt.

The truck suddenly stopped and the back opened, letting in a tiny bit of dim light. A man entered, his face shrouded by the shadows. He leaned over Louis and pressed a syringe into his arm. Louis struggled, but it only made it hurt worse.

After that, everything became awfully uncontrollable. He couldn’t move, but everything going on was perfectly clear. The man did the same to Harry, and then another large man grabbed Louis, carrying him out of the truck.

The truck had been parked in some kind of garage, and the trip to their destination was a brief flight of stairs and a few random turns. They were dumped in a small, dimly lit room with a handle-less door. The man carrying Louis had shaggy red hair and a wide grin, and he stood above Louis for a moment before leaning down and beginning to strip him.

Louis could have sworn he was flailing, trying to stop them, but he couldn’t move. Once he was completely naked- a flick of the eyes across the room showed Harry the same- the men left, leaving them lying immobile and naked on a cold and dirty metal floor.

The men returned in a few moments, carrying fire-lit brands. Each man had a few of the brands, each with a number on the end, glowing red. One started pressing the brands into Louis’ stomach, landing it just above his hip. 

He did three numbers, each one burning worse. Louis had never experienced such pain, but he couldn’t cry out. Once the branding was done, his original bindings were cut off and he was shackled to the wall.

His feet and wrists were clamped, attached to chains that slithered out a foot or two before becoming taut. A tight collar went around his neck- metal, again. A strange belt-like contraption went around his hips- it hung high on the wall to keep it from falling, and it had a loop that went between his legs.

The belt bade him wince, as it was cold and constrictive. The ankle, wrist, and belt allowed him, still dead weight, to dangle from the wall at a 45 degree angle to the ground.

His head hung down, so he couldn’t see if Harry was in the same position. The men left them like that for hours, until finally Louis could raise his head and stand on his own feet. Then the men reentered, toting long black strips of fabric.

Louis met Harry’s frightened eyes from across the room, giving a slight shake of his head, trying to say that they’d be alright; they’d get out of here. When one of the whips cracked across Louis’ chest, Harry let out a whimper.

Harry struggled against his chains as the other man lashed out with his whip, splitting a red line across Harry’s stomach, ripping into the bright red branded number.

Louis stared at Harry, wincing every time the man hit him with the whip, but trying to keep Harry’s eye contact, trying to keep a level head through this.

Harry was breathing heavily, but he did the same, kept the eye contact until his eyes started watering and he had to squeeze his eyes shut.

Louis finally screamed when the whip hit his cheek sharply, tossing his head to the side so he couldn’t see Harry.

“That’s a good noise, boy,” the man grunted. “Make it again.”

The whip slapped across his feet, leaving a bright line. Louis clenched his teeth, willing himself not to make a noise. Harry’s body was littered with red lines, crisscrossing on his torso and limbs, and Louis focused on that, trying not to let out another noise.

This went on for what felt like an eternity until a knock came on the door and the men were let out, leaving Harry and Louis alone. Louis finally looked around the room, trying not to move his neck too much, as it split open a cut further.

The room was dim and completely solid apart from the door, which was metal and had a reinforced window in the center. There were no shackles besides the ones he and Harry were in, but there was a dull metal cage on one side of the room.

Louis didn’t realize he was crying until the cage blurred into a gray blob and he let out a wail. Harry was crying too, sniffling loudly.

“I want to go home,” Harry said, thrashing one of his arms pointlessly. 

Louis managed to wipe his face on his shoulder, noting the smear of blood that came with the action.

“I think we’re really in trouble, Harry,” Louis said quietly, staring down at his battered body. “This doesn’t seem like it’s just for money.”

Harry let out a little breath. “I’m not ready to die.”

They stood there in silence until Harry readjusted, letting himself go limp and the chains support him.

“Three hundred and twenty nine,” Harry murmured, reading the number off of his hip.

Louis glanced down at his own number. “Three twenty eight,” he said. “You don’t think that means…there have been that many before us?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I just don’t know anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Harry,” Louis said hoarsely. They hadn’t been given food or water in an entire day. “They’re trying to weaken us, and make us feel less human…I don’t think they’re doing this for a ransom.”

Harry lifted his head. His curls had loosened, falling limply around his face. “I know…the branding, the stripping, the whipping, and now starvation and dehydration…if this was for a ransom, they’d keep us healthy and…and sane.”

“I’m worried,” Louis said. “It’s one thing to be killed, or kidnapped, but if they’re working towards making us docile…”

“We won’t become like that.”  
“It’s psychology,” Louis said. “If they take their time, that’s how this will turn out.”  
Harry sighed. “I’m just so tired.”  
“You can’t sleep?”

“Dangling from really cold chains in a fucking dungeon? No, I can’t sleep.”

Louis cast his eyes down. The last thing he wanted to do was estrange himself from his only ally in this, his best friend.

“I hope you survive,” Louis said.

“We’re both going to get out of here,” Harry replied. “It’s all or nothing, no person left behind.”

“We might not even be people by the time we get a chance to escape,” Louis said quietly. “Stockholm syndrome and all. Who knows what the purpose of this is, anyway. It’s obviously not a plain old kidnapping for ransom.”

“I guess we’ll have to find out,” Harry said.

Louis pressed his dry lips together, trying to find some moisture in his mouth to wet them. There wasn’t any moisture to be had, so he gave up and let his body fall limp, letting his head dangle. He stared down at the dirty metal floor until the door creaked open again, admitting the red-haired man again.

The man’s eyes raked up and down Louis once, making him shiver slightly. He walked back out, slamming the door harshly.

Louis met Harry’s eyes across the room, seeing the same fear in Harry’s eyes as he was feeling deep in his stomach.

“We won’t let them break us,” Harry said, his voice cracking. “I want to keep on living.”

“I just want to go home,” Louis said tiredly.

“We’re going to get home,” Harry said. “But until then, we have to stay strong.” 

The door banged open again, and the red-haired man entered once more, this time pulling the end of a large hose, one that looked almost like a fire hose, but slightly smaller.

Louis wasn’t all that worried about the hose- he assumed it was a way to give them water in the meanest way possible, as well as clean them off. Louis kept his head up until the spray hit him, and he regretted that the instant the stream smacked him, throwing his head back against the hard wall. 

The water stung and tossed his body, and it alternated between hot and cold so that his skin burned. He tried to let some of the water into his mouth from the side, but it felt like tiny needles stabbing his tongue.

He wanted to scream, it was tearing up inside him, but he couldn’t open his mouth or eyes. He tried blocking the stream with his arms, but at the right angles, the water would bat his hands away.

Louis had never really understood why hoses were used to handle untamable crowds, like in the 60’s in America…it always seemed like it would do nothing, just wet their clothes. But this- and it probably wasn’t a real fire hose- burned and flung his limbs around.

The man finally stopped, turning off the stream of water. Louis blinked and looked down at his burning body, seeing that his skin was bright red, indicative of the pain he could feel.

Louis then had to watch the man do the same to Harry- it was awful, watching Harry be tossed like a doll, the chains rattling and the water crashing loudly into Harry and the wall.

It seemed like a longer time for Harry- but that could just be because it bothered Louis much more, to watch this happen to Harry. When the man left them, they were cold and wet, their skin burning fiercely from the harsh spray. 

Louis stared across the small room at Harry, eventually glancing away when Harry started crying. The noise still reached him, loud in the silent room. The water was still at their feet, slowly draining out, but it was a cold, constant reminder that things would get worse, not better.

When they were finally given food, it was a strange soup-like stuff with the consistency of yogurt that tasted like beans. They were fed it by two of the men- it was poured down their throats, their jaws pried open by the men’s dirty hands.

Louis couldn’t help but gag, the goo clinging to the sides of his throat. He could feel it moving towards his stomach, so when there wasn’t anymore, he slumped in relief, watching the two men leave once more.

“That was unpleasant,” Louis said.

Harry actually laughed- the noise was strange, out of place- but it was real, actual amusement.

“Yes,” Harry said. “That was unpleasant.”

“How long do you think they’re going to keep us?” Louis asked, looking down at the manacle around his wrist. 

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “As long as they can, I suppose.”

“Do you think people are looking for us?” Louis wondered aloud. 

“Yeah…why wouldn’t they be?”

Louis shook his head. “These people seem like they have a plan, what if they made it seem like we ran off for some reason?”

“Why would we run off from the biggest band in the world? Our lives are…were fantastic.”

“Don’t say were,” Louis said. “I don’t want to act like this is a permanent thing.”

“It might be,” Harry said. “What if this is for some sick game? People are messed up; it could be some wide-spread thing that is too strong to escape from.”

“But maybe it isn’t,” Louis said. “Maybe the police can beat them, can break through and save us and whoever else these people have taken.”

——————————————————————————  
“They haven’t run away,” Niall said stubbornly, sitting on a couch in Louis and Harry’s flat. “They just haven’t.”

“Yeah, we all know,” Liam said. “But the police don’t.”

“I can’t believe that this isn’t a crime scene,” Zayn muttered, stalking around the living room. 

“There’s no proof,” Liam said. “They’re both adults, they’re allowed to leave without notice.”

“Where would they go? Everyone knows them, they can’t hide. If they had run away, someone would have spotted them by now,” Niall said. “And they didn’t bring anything with them, no clothes, no wallets…they left their phones, for god’s sake.”

“We know!” Liam said. “But that doesn’t prove anything. They can still take money out from banks and stuff. For all the police know, they could be trying to stay off the grid for some reason.”

“Who would kidnap famous people, though,” Zayn said. “That’s just dumb.”

“Or maybe it isn’t,” Niall said. “Everyone will think they’ve eloped or something.”

Liam laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m scared,” Zayn said quietly. “It’s been days.”

“They’ll be okay,” Niall said. “They’re grown men, they can handle themselves.”

“Not if they’re drugged or something,” Liam said. “Or cuffed, or shot, or tranquilized, or pepper sprayed, or-”

“Stop being negative,” Niall interrupted. “They’re going to be fine.” 

“You don’t know that,” Zayn said bitterly. “They could be dead.”

“It’s been a few days, they could be fine,” Liam said.

“Or dead,” Zayn mumbled.

“Stop it, okay?” Niall exclaimed. “There is nothing we can do no matter what.”

They sat there silently, staring around the empty, quiet apartment.

“They didn’t even put on shoes,” Liam said. “Louis’ closet has those stupid little shoe hooks and they were all full.”

“The door was unlocked,” Zayn added.

“Have the police checked the security footage?” Niall asked.

“There wasn’t any,” Liam said. “It all stopped recording at three a.m.”

Niall thumped his hand against the couch. “How is that not suspicious?”

“It’s not suspicious enough,” Zayn said. “You know, I was talking to Harry on the phone at two. He was fine.”

“And we were all supposed to meet at that morning show at five…so something happened at three, it must have been then,” Liam said. “Wait, why were you talking to Harry at two in the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you woke him up, too?” Niall asked.

“We have an arrangement,” Zayn said. “Anytime one of us can’t sleep, we call the other person.”

“Huh,” Liam said. “I never knew that.”

“I haven’t slept since they disappeared,” Zayn said. “And I keep calling him, but then I remember that his phone is lying in his room.”

“Zayn…” Niall said. “You have to sleep.”

“I can’t,” Zayn said. “I just can’t.”

“I wish they would just randomly turn up, apologizing for making us worry,” Niall said.

“I have a really awful feeling that this won’t end like that,” Liam said.

“The fans have created all of these petitions and pages to get the police department searching for them…put up signs, pledged to scan faces in crowds,” Niall said. “Maybe we’ll find them like that.”

“What if we’ve lost them forever?” Zayn asked. “What would we do?”

“The band would be done,” Liam said. “One Direction can’t be missing a single one of us.”

“I want them back,” Zayn said. “I want them to be sitting here with us, I want Harry to pick up his phone and say he’s alright.”

“We just have to wait,” Niall said.

“I’m sick of waiting, I want the police to find them and bring them back,” Zayn said. He stood up, striding off into the apartment. 

Liam watched him walk off before turning back to Niall. “He needs to sleep.”

“His body will overcome his worries before long and he’ll just pass out,” Niall said.

“Hopefully that will happen soon…he’s going to hurt himself.”

“I’m going home,” Niall said. “It’s freaking me out, the quiet here.”

“Okay,” Liam said. “Me, too, it’s pretty late.”

They both stood up and headed out, shouting into the apartment that they were leaving. There was no response, so they headed out, flipping their hoods up to brace for the paparazzi outside.

The next morning, Liam called Zayn just to check in and nearly had a heart attack when he didn’t answer. He called Niall next, asking him to tag along over to the apartment to see if Zayn was there.

“He didn’t answer his phone?” Niall asked as they were walking up towards the apartment building.

“No…” Liam said. “But I’m sure he’s fine.”  
They entered the apartment, still noticing the stillness, the silence. Niall headed in first, wandering down the hall. Zayn wasn’t in the kitchen or living room, so Liam checked the bathroom. 

He was about to say that Zayn wasn’t in the apartment when he heard a quiet ‘Oh’ from Niall. Liam ducked out of the bathroom and walked over to where Niall was, outside Harry’s bedroom.

Zayn was curled up on Harry’s unmade bed, obviously fast asleep and tangled in the sheet and blanket. He had one of Harry’s sweaters clutched in his arms, pressed into the side of his face.

“At least he’s asleep,” Liam whispered.

Niall stepped into the room- Liam reached out, trying to stop him, but Niall brushed his hand off, kneeling beside the bed and reaching for something just under the bed’s frame. 

Niall picked something up through a scarf, his eyes wide as he turned back to Liam. He was holding a folded white rag.

Niall sniffed the rag and made a face. “Liam…I think this is chloroform.”

Liam stared at the rag for a moment before really registering what Niall was saying. “Oh.”

Zayn stirred on the bed, making a little noise before opening his eyes, blinking slowly before finally noticing their presence and sitting up, struggling to untangle his legs from the sheets.

“Zayn,” Liam said. “I think we found something.”

Zayn squeezed his eyes tightly shut before shaking his head slightly as if to clear his head.

“What?”

“Chloroform,” Niall said. “We found this under the bed.”

Zayn glanced around his surroundings as if he were unaware of the setting. He noticed the sweater in his arms and let go of it, letting it fall into his lap. “Was I asleep?”

“Yeah,” Liam said. “Get up; we’re going to the police station.”

Zayn nodded blearily, stumbling out of the bed. “Okay.”

“Did you sleep well?” Niall asked, slightly teasingly.

Zayn scrubbed at his eyes, obviously still half-asleep. “Yeah.”

They managed to meet with the police fairly quickly. The officer they were dealing with was obviously annoyed with them, rolling their eyes as they walked into the small meeting room.

“What is it this time, you realized that one of your buddies left their precious ferret at home and they’d never do that?”

“Actually,” Liam said. “We found a rag that smells like chloroform under Harry’s bed.”

The officer took the rag from Niall, holding it through the scarf. “We’ll test it.”

They waited in the room patiently (not really) for the officer to come back in. He looked somewhat surprised, and he had the rag in a plastic bag.

“This did have chloroform on it,” he said, dropping the bag on the table. “And we’ve dragged a print. The print’s on the inside of the folds, so we’re thinking that whoever used this was wearing gloves but forgot to when they folded it up.”

“So does this mean you’ll start looking for them?” Zayn asked.

The officer sighed. “Yes.”

“So they really were kidnapped?” Liam asked. 

“It appears so,” the officer said. “Thank you for this evidence.”

“Any time,” Niall said.


	3. Chapter 3

The investigation was in full force a week later- the apartment had been completely sectioned off for investigation, crime scene tape stretching across doorways and blocking the paparazzi from coming too close to the doors. It didn’t completely block the paparazzi, of course- images of the bright crime scene tape littered magazines, newspapers, every website imaginable…The entire world knew that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson had been abducted.

There had been speculation that the wider spread knowledge would ensure that the two would be found soon, but as weeks passed, the hope flickered and vanished, turning into a sort of bitter dread of the day that the investigation would be announced ‘closed’. It was certainly lucky they were famous; as it kept the police hunting much harder than usual, as public backlash would be great if they were to give up or go about it half-heartedly.

It had been two months since they were taken when the other boys were finally let back into the apartment. The crime scene investigators had picked up a few trace fingerprints that belonged to nobody who would normally enter the apartment, and they’d determined that there was nothing left to find.

The apartment looked different- things were out of place or turned around, all disrupted by the investigation. The bedrooms were especially strange, as quite a few things were missing, taken as evidence, and there were large bins of their clothes that had been keeping the clothes from rubbing away evidence. Everything looked creepily clean, but messy in that everything was everywhere. The kitchen appliances were all clustered together, a few tipped over, and the couch was tilted on its side.

The first thing the boys did was flip the couch back to normal and crash down into it, letting out tired sighs. None of them were sleeping very well- the dark bags under their eyes were indicative of that. Zayn was the worst, looking physically ill from lack of sleep. 

They’d been to dozens of interviews, answering question after question about Harry and Louis with the management- approved answer. They knew nothing, they were praying, they were doing everything they could, they were waiting for their friends, and they believed the two would come back.

“They’re not coming back, are they?” Liam asked quietly, staring down at his hands. “It’s been months.”

“They’re coming back,” Zayn snapped. 

They’d all changed opinions several times- each would go through phases of negativity only to suddenly feel optimistic. None of them were ever happy, though, even if they went through a period of fully believing the boys were okay. 

“Don’t start arguing,” Niall said. “That’s just pointless.”

“So is everything else we could be doing!” Liam exclaimed. “Nobody has any idea where to start. The one big break with the fingerprints turned up nothing and we’re back to square one, where all we know is that they’re gone.”

“Stop,” Zayn said. “The police will figure things out.”

“What if they’re not back in time for the tour?” Niall asked. “What will we do?”

“Management will probably make us tour anyway,” Liam said. “They wouldn’t want to lose the money.”

“We’re not One Direction,” Zayn said. “We’re Niall, Liam, and Zayn.”

“They can’t force us to sing,” Niall said. “They can threaten us with pay cuts, but it won’t really matter. We could just sit on stage and wait for the fans to leave.”

“That’s pointless,” Liam said. “We might as well sing and hope that it makes the fans happy at the very least.”  
“How are we supposed to sing and act happy when we’re not?” Zayn asked. “I certainly don’t feel like jumping around on stage and revving up a crowd.”

“We’ll fake it,” Niall said. “We can fool the world. We’ve been doing that in interviews.”

“No, everybody knows we’re unhappy, it’s all over the internet,” Liam said. “They keep pointing out how tired we look and how we don’t smile.”

“We can fake it,” Niall said. “The last thing we want to do is push away the fans so that when Louis and Harry get back, the fans are gone.”

“You’re right,” Zayn said, smiling broadly. It looked almost pained, but could probably pass at a distance. “We can fake it.”

——————————————————————————————-  
Louis and Harry looked more like concentration camp victims than world-class celebrities. Their bodies were emaciated, their bones protruding and making distinct lines under their skin, and their faces were gaunt and pale. Their hair had started falling out recently, leaving their hair thin and patchy.

There was really nothing to do in this place other than try and stay sane- they would talk as much as they could, reminding each other that they could get out and everything would go back to normal. Louis had started to worry about Harry, though- he’d stop talking for days at a time, barely nodding when Louis talked to him. 

Louis figured that it was because Harry had stopped believing that they would escape.

They weren’t sure how long it had been since they were kidnapped- there were no windows to see the sun and keep track of days, and sometimes one hour would feel like an eternity if it was an hour where the men decided to come in and subject them to some kind of torture.

It started getting psychological recently- instead of simply burning, whipping, spraying, or beating them, one of the men would hold a gun against one of their heads and force the other to do something humiliating. Those were the only times they were let out of the shackles, but that didn’t make up for the things they were forced to do.

Most of the time the psychological torture wouldn’t be necessarily painful- they once forced Louis to (in polite language) use the bathroom in front of them, forcing Harry’s eyes open for the sole reason of making them feel like animals.

They hadn’t used the cage in the corner yet, and they were beginning to speculate on what it would be used for. Nothing good, obviously, but some of their guesses were worse than others, and while they tried to play off their fears, they were both terrified at the cage at the side of the room. 

Time passed slower in the room. It was stilted, as well- it felt unnatural, like time was limping along and occasionally taking detours just to delay its passing. 

“Harry,” Louis said one day. “Have you noticed a pattern?”

Harry’s head was hanging down, and he looked up slowly, blinking. Every time Louis saw his face, it looked less and less like the Harry he had always known. This new creature was weak, starved, and most of all, empty. Harry’s eyes had lost any gleam they had ever had, and he looked dead inside.

“No,” Harry said, barely audible, before letting his head drop again.

“Harry,” Louis hissed. “Look up.”

Harry lifted his head again, his eyes almost closed.

“They do physical torture three times in a row and then wait for a while and then do the psychological stuff,” Louis said. “We can know when to expect what now. Like, the next thing is physical, and then we have a break, and then psychological.”

Harry blinked and said nothing.

“Harry?”

“What?” Harry asked blandly.

“That’s a good thing,” Louis said slowly.

“Okay.”

Louis stared at the boy across the room, searching his eyes for any trace of Harry.

“Harry,” Louis said, his voice breaking uncomfortably. “You have to stay strong.”

Harry nodded vaguely, his body falling limp again.

“Harry!” Louis exclaimed, his voice loud and higher than usual. “You’re scaring me.”

Harry didn’t respond, simply kept staring at the ground.

“Harry, I don’t want to lose you,” Louis said.

He finally looked up, squeezing his eyes shut a few times in a row. “I want to die.”

Louis met Harry’s eyes, his own vision blurring with tears.

“Don’t say that,” Louis whispered. “You can’t let them win.”

Harry sighed. “They’ve already won, Lou. How long has it been? A month? Two? Three? Nobody gets saved after months. It’s a few days or never. They’re probably not even looking for us.”

“Of course they’re looking for us,” Louis said. “The boys wouldn’t have let them ignore our disappearance.”

“The boys don’t have control over the police.”

“Then the boys will be looking for us on their own,” Louis said. “Somebody is looking for us, I can feel it.”

“That doesn’t mean they’ll find us,” Harry said. “They would have already. We’re done for.”

“We’re not done for!” Louis shrieked, his own voice startling him, and visibly making Harry flinch. “We’re going to live, I don’t give a fuck how long it’s been, we’re getting out of here!”  
Harry shook his head and looked down towards the ground again. “I’m sorry, Lou.”

——————————————————————————————-

They all got good at faking it.

Liam was certainly the best- in the moments that Niall and Zayn let their façade briefly fall, Liam would jump in and give a little cheery speech about how lovely all the fans were being. 

Their smiles became permanent fixtures on their faces the moment they stepped outside and into the public eye. The tour went brilliantly- they didn’t enjoy it much at all, but the fans certainly did. At each concert they had a long moment of silence for Harry and Louis, and it was bizarre. All of the fans who normally screamed constantly fell silent the instant that one of the boys asked for the moment, and the dead silence in enormous concert halls was almost tangible.

At the last concert of their tour, it had been eight months since Harry and Louis vanished. The moment of silence was held longer than usual, and it broke momentarily when the entire audience felt it necessary to ‘aww’ sympathetically when Zayn burst into tears and pressed his face into his hands.

The other two glanced back at Zayn before facing forward again; figuring that one breakdown out of all of their concerts shouldn’t be interrupted. One fan screamed ‘I love you, Zayn’ after a second period of silence in which all of the fans stared rather confusedly at the still-crying boy on stage.

Zayn looked up when the girl screamed, and as the others were about to start yelling similar things, thinking that it had cheered him up, they noticed the furious expression on his face. Those too far back to see his face were soon alerted to his anger by his screaming.

He didn’t even use the microphone, but the quiet made his voice carry.

“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed, instantly prompting Niall and Liam to rush over to him, grabbing his arms and start to pull him backstage. “This isn’t about me, this is about Harry and Louis, just shut up!”

They yanked him backstage, the security taking it over from there. The crowd was still quiet, only hushed whispers disturbing the silence.

“We’re sorry,” Liam said. “This is just really hard on us.”

They wrapped up the show, saying the gratuitous thanks and praising the audience as being ‘the best’ audience of the tour. They kept glancing backstage to see if Zayn was going to come back out, but the management representative motioned for them to finish and get off stage.

Zayn was sitting in the corner of the dressing room when they finally found him- his hands were pressed against his closed eyes and it was obvious he was still crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said, muffled by his arms. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

“It’s okay, they’ll understand,” Niall said, taking off his jacket. “Well, most of them will.”

“Do you think we’ll ever get them back?” Zayn asked, pulling his hands away from his face to reveal his wet, red-rimmed eyes.

“It’s been so long,” Liam said, sitting down. “I just don’t know anymore.”

“Does anybody?” Niall asked rhetorically, sitting next to Liam. “I think the police are more than ready to call it a cold case and close it up permanently.”

“It’s not fair,” Zayn said bitterly. “They need to be found.”

“Did you notice that every time we’ve met with the police, they’ve been talking about Harry and Louis like they’re dead?” Liam asked.

Niall shook his head. “I think if they were dead, we would know.”

“What do you think the purpose of kidnapping them is?” Zayn asked. “Just for the hell of it?”

“Maybe some kind of sick test of their power,” Liam said. “I have a feeling this isn’t just one little group of people, I think it’s some kind of organization.”

“Yeah,” Niall said. “Harry and Lou could have handled a few guys.”

“They can handle anything,” Zayn said. “They’re going to get back to us.”

“I just hope they don’t get back to us in body bags,” Niall said quietly. “That’s what scares me the most.”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Zayn said. “I want to believe that they’ll be fine.”

“They won’t be the same if they do come back,” Liam said. “They’ll never be the Louis and Harry we know ever again.”

“But they will be Louis and Harry, and that’s what matters. I just want them back,” Zayn said. “No matter what they’ve become.”

——————————————————————————————-

The cage was to keep the dog in. There were several dogs, technically, but one at a time. The men would let the dog out after spraying one of the boys with a strange-smelling liquid that would set the dog on them. Louis assumed that the dogs were trained to attack whoever smelled of the specific thing, and it certainly worked.

Occasionally they would simply put one of the boys in the cage with the dog and force them to fight- once in a while, they would manage to kick the dog’s skull and kill it, but of course it was replaced by another, equally vicious dog. 

Louis hated it. He loved dogs, and being subjected to getting attacked and having to attack a dog felt wrong. 

He had no idea what Harry thought of the dogs. Harry didn’t talk anymore. He stopped a long while back and basically turned into a breathing dead man. 

That scared Louis more than anything else in this- he knew that Harry was long gone, leaving only a shell of a man. He knew that if they escaped, out of everything, this would be the one wound that wouldn’t heal. The cuts and bruises and everything else would go away, but Harry would never be Harry again. 

Everything the men had them do, Harry would do mindlessly, never screaming or protesting or resisting. He was a puppet to be used however they wanted, and Louis knew the men were just waiting for him to become the same kind of empty shell. 

The men started doing things to Harry that they skipped with Louis- they would rape him, hissing at Louis to stop screaming. Harry never said anything, and each time they left him, battered and bruised, he would get a little more lifeless.

After ages of watching Harry be attacked, Louis decided to pretend to be the same way. He stopped screaming, stopped fighting, and after dozens of torture sessions- they were the only way to keep track of time- the men seemed to accept that he was truly docile. What frightened him was that the rape stopped as soon as he started acting docile- as if they'd been purposefully doing those things to Harry to break Louis.

They were randomly let out of their shackles one day, breaking the usual patterns. They stood weakly in the middle of the room- they would sink to the ground, but the men had ordered them to stand and wait. 

Louis would have reached for Harry’s hand, but he had to act mindless, empty, so he stood silently and waited. The men came in with normal looking garden hoses, soaking both of them. The hoses weren’t incredibly powered like the usual hoses, and the spray felt almost good. It didn’t last long, though, just long enough to spray the blood and grime off of their bodies. 

They were told to wait again, and once the last of the water had dripped away, the men entered again, handing each of the boys a pile of dark gray clothes. Louis was stunned, taking the clothes and staring down at them. 

He stepped into the loose pants numbly, slipping on the long-sleeved shirt afterwards, gazing down at how the clothes that would once have been constricting were baggy on him.

Next were strange wrist cuffs that fit snugly around each of their left wrists, a small light appearing on the side of it. Louis realized after these items were put on them that they were going to be taken somewhere. All of this time in this dungeon was all to prepare them for something.

Thin slip-on shoes were the final addition, and Louis glanced over at Harry subtly, realizing that he simply looked like an incredibly skinny twelve year old boy. He didn’t look like a starved Harry Styles, he looked like a stranger. They could practically be taken in public looking like this.

“These bracelets have a remote-controlled needle in the cuff that will enter your wrist and inject a lethal amount of poison should we choose to flip the switch, so don’t even think of making a move,” one of the men said, grinning at their blank expressions. “You understand?”

He took their silence as an affirmative and opened the door, gesturing for them to walk out. The hallway was rather nice looking, like a normal person’s basement. The door to their prison cell closed with a loud clang of finality, and it almost made Louis flinch. They were led up two staircases, taking ages because of their weakened bodies. 

The first glimpse of sunlight Louis had almost made him cry. Of course he didn’t let himself cry- that would seem too human and his docile façade would crumble. They were guided outside and into a normal car, a Ford that a normal family might drive.

Two men were in the car with them, in the front seats. The windows weren’t even tinted. The men had normal conversation, talking about football and completely ignoring the fact that Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson were in their backseat.

The drive was fairly long- they were obviously in the middle of the country, as they saw very few houses and innumerable trees. Finally they pulled into a long driveway, heading for a beautiful, large house. They were let out of the car and ushered inside, and they stood in a fancy foyer for a while until a well-dressed couple came down the stairs, large smiles on their faces.

The woman wore a white dress and she smiled brightly at them- she was quite beautiful, but in this situation she looked horribly ugly. The man wore a light shirt with a tie and looked both of them up and down, his eyes lingering at the bracelets on their wrists.

“Are they completely docile?” the woman asked, moving to touch Harry.

“Completely,” one of the delivery men said. “You can do whatever you want to them. We took the extra measure of the bracelets in case you want to take them outside.”

“Oh, lovely,” she said. “Isn’t this perfect, darling?”

The man nodded. 

The woman brushed her hand along Harry’s cheek, tilting her head to the side. “They look so sad.”

“They’re animals,” the man said. “You can’t exactly expect them to be normal.”

“True. Anyway, thank you. The money will be wired to the transfer account immediately.”

The large men left, getting into the Ford and disappearing, leaving them in this fancy house with these sophisticated people.

“Darlings, I have a room perfectly prepared for you two. I must admit I wasn’t expecting them to have you prepared for another few months, but it they did promise under nine months, so,” the woman smiled, gesturing for them to follow her down a long hallway. 

She led them to a ground-floor bedroom. It was elaborately decorated, with picture frames and a large, beautiful bed with fancy bedding. 

“I only prepared one bed, I’m sure it won’t matter,” she said. “I’m Andrea, by the by.”

“I don’t think they have the minds to care about beds,” the man said. “And they won’t be doing any talking. Don’t forget that they’ve been through the process.”

“Of course, Henry, I just talk out of habit,” Andrea said. “Anyway, boys, please rest. I’ll collect you both tomorrow.”

She locked the door behind her, leaving them in the fancy room. Louis didn’t dare examine the windows more than a cursory glance at the locks- there were certainly cameras in the room.

Harry lay on the bed immediately, not speaking. Louis did the same, not wanting to seem different from Harry. It took a long time to fall asleep, his mind whirring with confusion. This whole thing was obviously some kind of trade- Andrea and Henry had paid for the men to kidnap and weaken him and Harry. It had to be some exorbitant fee, as the danger of trying to kidnap celebrities was huge.

Everything kind of made sense this way- the kidnapping was perfectly executed because it was by a company of…slave traders? They probably usually went for vulnerable ‘normal’ people, like homeless people or people in other countries looking for work who would be willing to go with a stranger at the promise of a ‘job’. Louis had heard of things like this, but had never imagined them taking a stab at celebrities. 

Of course, for the right amount of money, someone would probably try to kidnap the prime minister.


	4. Chapter 4

“You can’t treat them like this every time!” Henry exclaimed. Louis shifted from his sitting position in the bed, trying to hear better through the door. “Last time you did this, we only got half refunded. If we fuck up this one, we’ll never recover!”  
“I’m not going to mess it up,” Andrea said calmly. “Last time was a mistake, you have to trust me. I’ll get the money.”  
“And be faster this time, too. This in-between stage when we have them in our home and haven’t even been paid yet, just transferred money, is horribly stressful.”  
“You don’t even do any of the work,” Andrea exclaimed. “You just handle security!”  
“I also manage the customer! They don’t want to be kept waiting much past that nine-month suggestion that the primaries give them. I told them two months yesterday- if they don’t get their product by April, there will be hell to pay. This is bigger than anything we’ve done before, you can’t take this lightly!”  
“I’m not going to take it lightly,” Andrea said tightly. “Now, if you excuse me, you have already delayed several minutes of stage one.  
“Boys,” Andrea said with a knock. “Wake up.”  
She entered the room, smiling broadly at Louis, who was sitting up next to Harry, who was still asleep.  
“You’re having haircuts today,” she said happily. “You’re both shaggy lil’ pups.”  
Louis slid off of the bed obediently, nudging Harry awake.  
“I get my hair done all the time,” Andrea said, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I’m practically an expert. You’ll just sit right here and you’ll look like a movie star!”  
Louis sat in the chair she’d just dragged in, and she smiled.  
“You’re just as cute and perfect as they promised! Well worth every penny, certainly.”  
She started snipping at his hair, using tiny metal scissors. “I can’t wait to show Henry once I’ve finished.”  
Louis watched in the mirror as she snipped, feeling the urge to stop her after she chopped two inches and neared the haircut he’d had before being taken- but he didn’t look like himself even then. He barely recognized himself.  
She continued cutting until he had barely any hair, just a little bit towards the front, and he stood up from the chair looking like a prisoner of war. She did the same to Harry- Louis felt his stomach twist as each of Harry’s long strands of hair fell. His hair ended up being just a tad longer than Louis’, but was still army-short.  
“You two look simply perfect,” she said. “Now we just have to get some meat on those bones.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“It’s not a cold case yet,” the detective inspector said. “But we informed the victims’ parents that there is little to nothing to work with right now, and they asked that we tell you three.”  
Niall huffed. “If there is nothing to work with, find something.”  
The detective’s lip curled into a snarl. “We are working on it.”  
“Then why are you telling us that there is little to work with? You have the finding of things to work with to work with. Like you said, it’s been ten months, it’s time to buckle down,” Liam said. “Thank you for speaking to us.”  
The detective reached into their pocket.  
“Here,” they said, handing over a business card. “Call the research and recovery unit head to bother, not me. She’s the one you should be hounding.”  
The detective left, leaving the three sitting silently, holding a card.  
“Screw calling,” Niall said. “Let’s visit the useless clod.”

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At twenty four, she’d never expected to be living this life- research and recovery unit head of the London police force? That was a pipe dream that she’d had in university and in the police academy. But here she was, with the make-it-or-break-it case of her life on her desk.  
Admittedly, it was covered by several books and a bag of Percy Pigs, but it was there, just begging to have a few neat print-outs of solid evidence slipped in that damn manila folder.  
Her apartment was still pretty small, despite the fancy job title- they gave bonuses for good work on cases, and she’d only been working in this position for eleven months, ten of which were centered around this case. And this case, on another note, was not something she ever pictured having to work on.  
She’d been working day and night- searching web forums endlessly, researching human trafficking rings, interviewing the families, trying to recover security footage, searching with the fingerprints…and she’d turned up nothing.  
The difficulty wasn’t unexpected, of course- the unexpected part was who she was trying to find. It wasn’t exactly every day that two fifths of the world’s biggest boy band would get kidnapped and end up with their pictures printed out and stapled to the inside of a manila folder (that was practically empty other than those pictures).  
Her desk was barely inside the apartment, and if the door swung too wide, it would smack the desk’s corner. She used it as everything- desk, dining room table, coffee table…one would think that that would mean it would have to be clean, but it was loaded with books and mugs and random knickknacks.  
She finally dragged out the folder, flipping it open tiredly. Every night, she did this, and she conducted the online part of the investigation, trying to find some proof of the boys being sold or discussed. Mostly she ended up with analyses by fans of the boys, which usually ended with assertions that they’d run off to get married.  
She returned to one of the sketchy websites she’d found- it was certainly some kind of human trafficking site, but they spoke in strange codes that she wasn’t sure the meanings of. After a few minutes of staring at the posts, there was a knock at the door and she threw down the folder happily, jumping up. Anything to interrupt was welcome. She opened the door without checking the peephole, which went against every promise she’d made to her mother before moving to London.  
“Hello!” she exclaimed as she swung it open.  
Three boys stood just outside her door, their faces sour.  
“Are you the R.R. head…Ariana D-”  
She slammed the door shut and turned away, leaning her back against it. The remaining members of One Direction were at her apartment. After a few seconds of standing there, a harsher knock thumped against the wood.  
“Excuse me,” one of them said. “But we were referred to see the research and recovery unit head, so we’d much appreciate it if you opened your door.”  
She turned and swung it open again.  
“Welcome to my home,” she said, gesturing towards the apartment. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The research and recovery unit head was not very polite at first. They were shocked to have the door slammed in their face, barely getting a glimpse of the woman before being treated to faces full of the blue-painted door.  
Zayn knocked again, slamming his hand into the door before Liam gave him a little nudge and spoke, his voice artificially sweet.  
The lady opened her door again and let them in, a frown creasing her face.  
“I’m Ariana,” she said. “I guess you’re looking for me.”  
They introduced themselves quickly, and she waved her hand dismissively.  
“I know who you are. What I don’t know is what you think you’re doing here,” she said. “Friends and relatives should not be involved in the investigation.”  
She was only a few inches shorter than them, but she stood hunched away from them, and kept glancing at the clock with small frowns that increased in intensity.  
“We were told that you’re the one who can’t find anything to work with,” Zayn said. “And we figured that if we asked real nicely we could get you to work a little harder.”  
“I’ve been working nonstop on this freaking case!” she exclaimed. “Don’t even think about telling me to work a little harder!”  
“Why haven’t you found anything, then?” Niall asked. “It can’t be that hard to dig up a little dirt.”  
She pushed a pair of black glasses down from her hair and over her brown eyes, picking up the open folder to hand to them.  
“I’ve been looking for evidence and leads to fill that folder with for eight months,” she said. “And that’s everything I’ve got.”  
Liam flipped through the scant number of papers with pursed lips, wincing at the pictures of his friends.  
“We just would like you to make sure that you are working as hard as you humanly can,” he said. “Please.”  
She nodded, gesturing towards the laptop. “I was actually working right when you all arrived,” she said. “So technically, you’re taking away from my time.”  
“Get back to work, then,” Zayn said, scooping a large Harry Potter bobble head and a rubber band ball off of a spare chair so he could sit. “We’ll just observe for a little while.”  
“Fine,” she said. “If you get thirsty or hungry, just say ‘Maid Ariana, fetch us some refreshments from icebox!’ and I’ll hop to it.”  
Liam and Niall did their best to sit on stacks of books, and she turned away from them, seizing the mouse to the laptop.  
There was barely a five minute wait until one of them spoke.  
“What are you doing?”  
“I found a site that I think is a human trafficking forum,” she said, sighing. “I’m trying to figure out the code that they’re writing in.”  
“Let me see,” Niall said, jumping up and kneeling on the floor beside the desk. “I was always great at codes.”  
“Excuse me,” Ariana said. “You can’t just jump into the investigation, you’re a civilian.”  
“Technically,” Liam said. “He’s just looking at a site that he could find online by himself.”  
“He could find it if he could figure out the password to view it,” Ariana said. “But I doubt that.”  
“Well, he’s going to look at it, or we’ll tell the press something bad about you,” Zayn said, before turning to Liam. “Is that blackmailing?”  
Liam nodded, and Ariana turned back to the laptop with a huff.  
“Just don’t tell Detective Howard,” she said tiredly, putting the computer in front of Niall. “I don’t want to get fired.”  
Niall frowned at the screen for a few solid minutes, barely blinking.  
“So they’re pretending to be talking about teacups?” he finally asked. “What if this actually is a cup-collector site?”  
“Tea cup collectors don’t password protect their sites and talk about them in code names,” Ariana replied. “I’ve been trying to figure out if any of the code names refer to Tomlinson or Styles.”  
“How about that?” Niall said, pointing at a post only a day old. “’Have you started to repair the chips in the Worcesterand Yorkshire?’”  
“That’s just like dozens of others on here,” Ariana said, leaning back in her chair. “See- ‘Is the antique oxford re-glazed yet?’”  
“But a Yorkshire teacup is a dog, not a teacup,” Niall said, leaning back onto his heels. “And Yorkshire’s where Louis’ from, and Worcestershire is where Harry is from.”  
Ariana yanked the laptop back towards her. “I haven’t seen this one yet,” she said. “I’m going to search for other mentions of ‘Worcester and Yorkshire’. You all can go.”  
“Hell no,” Zayn said, jumping up and standing behind Niall. “We’re staying.”  
She started typing and scrolling.  
“There is only one other mention, and it’s a confirmation that the ‘repair’ company picked up the cups from the ‘shipping’ company and paid the shipment price that was transferred through them.”  
“Are there any deleted posts about it?” Liam asked, joining Niall on the floor. “Use that internet archive thingy.”  
“Internet archive thingy,” Ariana muttered, pulling up a few programs. “Use the internet archive thingy.  
“There are two other posts,” she said. “One is confirming that the repair company hired the shipping company properly- that they won’t ‘irreparably damage the cups’, and the other is discussing dates of delivery. This says that the shipping company gets the cups to the repair company within nine months, and that the repair company should get it to the buyer within two months.”  
“Shouldn’t there be more?” Niall asked.  
“This site is pretty new, but all of the posters know each other and the lingo, so I’m thinking that they made a new one and deleted the old one to avoid detection,” she said. “But I haven’t been able to find that yet.”  
“Are there addresses or numbers or names or anything?” Zayn asked, his voice desperate.  
“I’m looking, alright?” Ariana said. “The confirmation post is from a user named ‘Marbella’, whose profile just talks about their desire to collect the ‘Marbella Five’ teacups.”  
“Marbella?” Niall asked. “Marbella?”  
“Yeah,” Ariana said. “Marbella.”  
“That’s where we went on X-factor for the judge’s house part,” Liam said. “You don’t think…”  
“Don’t forget that coincidences occur,” she said. “Don’t get your hopes up. I will be bringing this to the technical analyst, of course…but don’t get your hopes up, please. And please don’t tell the press about this. Pretend to be clueless until we make a public statement regarding anything.”  
“Of course,” Niall said. “Thank you.”


	5. Chapter 5

“I found a website, Dennis,” Ariana said, clutching the phone to her ear. “Well, I found it a while ago, but I’m pretty sure that the user ‘Marbella’ is involved in the Tomlinson-Styles kidnapping.”  
“Alright,” Dennis replied. Ariana could already hear keys clacking in the background. “Marbella, is it?”  
“Yes.”  
“Is there sufficient evidence to obtain a warrant?”  
“It depends,” Ariana said. “We- I found that the user was involved in a discussion about the ‘Worcester’ and ‘Yorkshire’ teacups, which are the hometowns of the kidnapped boys, and ‘Marbella’ is the location that the five of them went for X-factor, and ‘Marbella’ is trying to collect ‘the Marbella five’.”  
There was a pause. “I don’t know…that might not fly with the higher ups. But I’ll start the IP trace now, so that if they approve it, it’ll be ready.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Anytime.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The two months that Louis had heard Andrea speak of had passed- in this place, it was easy to keep track of time, what with the calendar in the kitchen.  
Andrea had occasionally taken Harry away from Louis, bringing him off somewhere and returning him, battered, bruised, and shaken, hours later. Harry never responded when asked what had happened during the time.   
He had to assume that it was similar to what Andrea was doing to him when he would be taken from Harry. She would lead him to a small room, where she'd try to force him to do things to a doll or her- she'd record him, saying that their buyer might be willing to pay more if she proved that the boys were pre-prepared.  
On the days they weren't separated for 'training', she would feed them excessive amounts of food and keep them clean and looking perfect. At the two-month mark, Louis caught sight of himself in the mirror, and he looked normal, apart from his hair that had been kept short.   
“Just eat it,” Andrea said, sighing as she gestured at the bowl in front of Harry. Harry hadn’t changed- he was still silent and dull. He was starting to make Andrea angrier and angrier, though- he refused to eat any more than a few morsels every day, and had gained barely any of his weight back, whereas Louis was back to normal- if not slightly over.   
“Eat it!” she screamed, smacking him hard against the side of his head. Harry slumped to the side at the blow, hitting his head on the corner of the table and slipping to the floor.  
“Stop!” Louis shouted, shoving her instinctually.  
Her eyes widened and she screamed for her husband, who came running into the room moments later.  
“He’s not docile!” she said, backing away from him. “He spoke! He pushed me!”  
“Jesus,” Henry said, rubbing his brow. “And what did you do to the other one?”  
“He fell!” Andrea said defensively. “And that one shouted and shoved me!”  
“Fine,” Henry said. “I’ll call the other guys, they’ll take him to the dump site.”  
“Quickly, Henry. You know I don’t like to use the bracelets.”  
“Well,” Louis said. “Since this has all fallen apart anyway, it’s nice to speak to you, Andrea Singingworth.”  
She frowned at him, backing away further. “Just because I don’t like to use the bracelets doesn’t mean I won’t, boy.”  
“I’m not a boy,” Louis said. “I’m twenty two. And just because your little henchmen turned me into some kind of abused dog you see in PETA ads and you’ve been treating me like some kind of poodle doesn’t mean I’m not human. You’re sick.”  
Andrea left the room, her heels clicking.  
“You’re a monster!” Louis yelled after her. “A monster!”  
He’d already checked all of the security systems- he couldn’t get out of here no matter how hard he tried. There were security codes and gates and phone calls to be made to an entrance operator.  
Instead, he sat down beside Harry, who was lying on the ground.  
“Are you awake?” he asked, nudging him slightly.  
Harry blinked up at him a few times and closed his eyes.  
“Harry,” Louis said, trying to keep his voice calm. “If you’re in there…don’t give up, okay? They’re dumping me, so you’re going to be alone. Don’t give up.”  
Henry walked back into the room and seized Louis by the collar, dragging him to his feet.  
“Let’s go,” Henry said, lifting him enough off his feet so that he couldn’t balance.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ariana spent the day between the warrant request and the decision on the trafficking site, checking for updates. For a long time, there was nothing, and then one of the involved parties commented to Marbella ‘Yorkshire needs to be traded in for a replacement…it will be a collectible, not a cheap replacement, there is no need to worry. The updated glaze job never set in.’  
It took her a minute to register what she was looking at, and when it finally sunk in, she lunged for her phone.  
“Detective…detective,” she said, cutting off his complaint about the early hour. “There’s an update on the site, I think they’re going to try and take one of the other boys and kill Tomlinson.”  
“Jesus Christ,” the detective said. “You want us to bring them to the station? Really?”  
“And just be aware that if somehow that warrant gets approved…Tomlinson’s not going to be at the house.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Why do we have to go in, again?” Zayn asked, sliding into the police car. “I don’t really get it.”  
“There have been implications that one of you is going to be taken in the near future, and we need to prevent that from happening,” the police man driving the car said.   
“You realize that that one photographer snapping pictures is going to make the world think that us three have been arrested for killing Harry and Louis,” Liam said. “Just so you’re aware.”  
“We actually considered that,” he said. “So we’re making a public statement. And it should kill two birds with one stone- it should alert the world that you’re innocent, and discourage the kidnappers from killing Tomlinson, since if they know that the rest of you can’t be taken, they won’t kill him.”  
“They’re going to kill him?” Niall exclaimed. “We missed that briefing!”  
“One of the posts on that website suggested that something went wrong with him, so they’re ditching him,” he said. “We’re taking necessary precautions.”  
“Couldn’t you have done this at some time other than three thirty in the morning?”  
“No.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The judge that approved the warrant was fairly old, and nodded slowly throughout the entire appeal for a warrant- all of those in attendance for the decision left slightly shaken and confused by the approval.  
Detective Howard took out his cellphone as soon as he left.   
“The judge passed the warrant,” he said, shaking his head. “The team’s heading out at eight, you can tail if you really want to, but if this is actually the kidnapper, you might not want to.”  
“I don’t think I will,” Ariana said, leaning back in her chair, supporting her laptop with her knee. “I’m not a fan of bullet wounds.”  
“Alright. I’ll call when we find out how it goes. The other three are still in custody, if you were worried.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The three managed to pilfer a police radio- they were so proud of themselves, they nearly spoiled it by having it out when a police officer walked by the window of their room.  
“I think that they’re going to the house,” Niall said, listening to the radio. Only one could listen at a time, because they had to have it on such low volume that they had to keep it pressed to their ear. “They’re taking a hostage team.”  
“What if Louis is already dead?” Zayn asked sullenly. “It’s been almost twelve hours since they found that post, if they’re going to kill him, he’s long gone.”  
“But the press conference,” Liam said. “That might have made them change their minds.”  
“Maybe,” Niall said. “Oh, oh, something’s happening!”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It took quite a while for that same nondescript Ford to show up in the long driveway to pick Louis up from the garage room that he’d been kept in since the incident. When it finally did come, they pushed him into the backseat, and the two guys in the front showed off their remote bracelet controls immediately. They handcuffed him to the other seat belt in the back and tied his legs haphazardly to the adjustment bar under the seat.  
Ten minutes away from the house, a large black van whizzed by on the other side. Louis turned towards it, recognizing the shape from news reports- it was the van for hostage situations. Another went by slower and he tried to get his face as close to the window as he could without the escorts noticing.  
The van followed its twin and disappeared.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Andrea kept petting Harry. It was strange, the way she ran her hand across his scalp, letting her nails drag as she spoke.  
“I know you aren’t exactly lucid enough to understand,” she said. “But you have to understand. The person you’re going to tomorrow isn’t as nice as Henry and I. You’ll have to do everything they ask you to. Everything, okay? I don’t want to get a complaint in a year saying that you’ve been dumped for misbehaving. Be a good little boy.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Louis didn’t move when he saw the sirens light up behind the unremarkable Ford. He stayed perfectly still except to nod when the men ordered him not to say anything to the officer, the one in the passenger seat brandishing a baseball bat.  
The police officer stayed in their car for several minutes before walking up, a pad of paper in her hand.   
“License and registration, sir?”  
The man reached for his wallet, pulling out his license and handing it to the officer.  
“Do you realize how fast you were going? This is a construction zone, as well,” she said. “I’m going to have to write you a ticket.”  
Both men sighed, and the officer happened to glance into the backseat at Louis. Her eyes snapped back to the front immediately.  
“One moment, please remain here, I just have to process this and fill out a few things,” she said, marching back to the car.   
One of the men turned towards Louis and smashed his leg with the bat, repeating the movement several times until the bone peeked through the back of his leg, blood running onto his jeans.  
“You keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Or it'll be your spine next.”  
Louis muffled a scream with his shoulder, and composed himself as well as he could, still breathing hard.  
The police officer leaned into her cruiser for a few moments before heading back for the Ford. “Sorry, I just needed to check the license registration date and I’m short sighted.”  
She glanced at the front of the car before abruptly ducking back towards the driver’s side window and quickly squeezing the trigger on two Tasers, one in each hand.  
“Jesus,” she exclaimed. “If you’re not Louis Tomlinson, I’m going to be fired.”  
“They have remotes,” he exclaimed. “If they wake up even a little bit more, they’re going to press them and kill me, find them, please!”  
The officer took a deep breath and opened the door, yanking the semi-conscious driver out and started patting him down, pulling out a small keychain with a dangling box.   
“Is this it?”  
“Yes, the other has one too, quickly, please!”  
She moved to the other side and followed the same process, finding a handcuff key on the passenger-side man’s key chain. She unlocked Louis and within a few more seconds, both men were handcuffed tightly and she half-dragged each of them to her patrol car.   
The officer carefully untied Louis' feet, muttering apologies as Louis hissed in pain.  
It had been at least an hour since the hostage team left for the house, and there was no word coming across the radio for the longest time until finally, it crackled on with a female voice.  
“I’ve got Tomlinson,” she whispered. “I pulled over a car for speeding, he’s handcuffed to the backseat, I’m going to Taser them; I don’t have time to wait.”  
Another voice came on. “Officer, you do not have the proper preparation for that takedown.”  
Nothing came from the other line.   
“Officer?”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Zayn had turned up the radio at the first sign of a voice, and the three sat tightly around it, feeling their hearts speed up and pound in their ears.  
“I can’t hear anything!” Niall exclaimed. “What’s happening?”  
A few minutes passed, and then a sharp crackle.   
“The men are semi-conscious and handcuffed in the backseat of my patrol car,” the officer said. “I had to cuff Tomlinson to the grille of the car, he’s…well, he was fine at first, just a little panicked, but he’s just become violent and a little…psychotic? Rabid?”   
As she spoke, there were a few shouts and screams in the background that just barely made it through the feed.  
“Copy,” a new voice said. “We’re about ten minutes out from the house, can you try to get the kid to explain if it’s the right place and what kind of defense we should expect?”  
“Yes, hold on,” she said. “I’ll open the feed and talk to him while it’s on so you can hear.”  
There was a loud clunk and a few shuffling noises.  
“Stop wasting time!” Louis shrieked, and all three of the boys flinched back. “If they realize that the car was intercepted, Harry is dead!”  
The line turned off again, and when it came back, Louis’s shouts were a barely audible noise in the background.   
“He won’t stop yelling,” she said. “He says that they’re going to kill Styles if they realize they’ve been caught. The kidnappers have remotes; Tomlinson claimed that they would kill him with them.”  
“Let him speak to us,” another officer said. “We’ll deal with the screaming.”  
“Alright,” she said. “Your choice.”  
The line came on again.  
“Tomlinson, explain to them the house’s security, please,” she said, and then Louis’ voice was there.  
“If the team goes in there, guns blazing, they’re going to kill Harry within moments. There is a gate operator who guards the front side, and inside the house there is a…forty year old man named Henry Singingworth, his wife Andrea, and I’m pretty sure that they have a, a, a ‘delivery man’ waiting to take Harry to their buyer tomorrow, who is most likely a twenty to thirty year old male at least six feet tall, if the past people are anything to go off of,” Louis said, his voice harsh and trembling. “The only way in is through the side with the trees- then there is a high fence, and after a few hundred yards of open land, there is a window that they leave open until around three in the afternoon. Once inside the house, there are two hallways, and the left one will lead to Harry- don’t turn off of that path until there’s a large oak door. Behind that is a dining room, that’s where they’ve been keeping us most often. But if the entrance is too loud or they see on the cameras when the team crosses the lawn, they’ll kill Harry and go through an escape passage in the floor of the back hallway.”  
There was a crackle as the line turned off, and another one followed that immediately.  
“Uh…copy,” an officer said. “So what you’re saying, kid, is that we need to be silent…and take down the three in there without any negotiation?”  
“Yes!” Louis exclaimed as soon as his end turned on. “Screw regulation shit, you have to take them down!”


	6. Chapter 6

Harry started screaming after he had a better understanding of what was happening around him. Once he started observing faces and not just sleeping, he didn't start speaking, but he did start screaming. It was an unearthly wail, with the blistering tone of a banshee. He would scream whenever he was alone in the room, and whenever a blonde woman or any remotely tall man entered.  
Half of the nurses and doctors couldn't so much as peek into his room without prompting him into a fit.  
Louis was given permission to be discharged from the hospital on his tenth day there, but Harry's inclination to panic when alone meant that the hospital needed someone in his room 24/7. None of the nurses particularly wanted to sit in the disturbed boy's room all the time, so Louis managed to convince the hospital that it was a good idea to set up a second bed in the room and let him stay there.  
A rather extensive search took place to find a good psychologist for Harry who wasn't a blonde woman or a tall man. Several seemed short enough or brunette enough to pass, but inspired full-blown panics from Harry when they entered his room. The hospital ended up calling in a doctor from their partner clinic in Ireland, a man who was short with very dark hair.  
The search didn't seem to be worthwhile, anyway- Harry did nothing but stare pleadingly at Louis whenever the psychologist came in. He hadn't spoken since that first day he'd woken up.  
Zayn, Niall, and Liam were finally allowed to visit once Harry was deemed not dangerous. Harry had almost smiled when they'd walked in, something like recognition in his eyes.  
Zayn burst into tears and ran out of the hospital a few moments after he walked in- that sparked quite interesting headlines announcing that Harry and Louis had died, or that the band had broken up.  
Zayn returned the next day and sat with Harry while Louis slept.  
“We've missed you,” he said, watching Harry's eyes, hoping that he would stop gazing steadfastly at the window and flit towards him. “I couldn't sleep except in your bed.”  
He laughed. “It sounds terribly strange that way,” he said. “I sound mad.”  
Harry turned slightly towards him, a frown creasing his brows and pulling his concave cheeks down. Zayn's breath caught, and a flicker of hope in him yearned for Harry to smile, laugh and snark back at Zayn 'You are mad!'.  
But all he got was an empty gaze from the vaguest echo of a man.

*******************************************************************

 

“I would advise that you listen to this tape every night as you sleep,” Dr. Donohue said. “It's not a proven science, but it might help eradicate some of your fear. Mr. Tomlinson, I'm sure you will monitor this?”  
“Of course,” Louis said, using his crutches to get over to the window, tossing the curtains apart. “I'll do anything.”  
The doctor took out a few photographs, pulling out a photo of Harry's mother, holding it out to the boy.  
“Do you recognize this woman?” the doctor asked, trying to get Harry to look. But Harry stared intensely out of the window instead, his gaze almost sharp in its focus.

*******************************************************************

 

Whereas Louis had regained a substantial amount of weight and looked almost normal, Harry looked like a dead man. He had plenty of nutrients from the IV, but he refused to eat solid food and he hadn't gained any weight back. The doctors were constantly panicking about it, fretting that he would suffer another heart attack.  
The press had captured several photos, videos, and bits of information regarding the boys. They'd gotten a whole series of Louis being wheeled into the hospital, they had the video of Harry collapsing, and there was a picture of the hospital room.  
The images had gone beyond viral. Everyone wanted to see the famous boys stripped down into nothing but victims. One of the morning shows invited a psychologist, a medical doctor, and a celebrity gossiper onto their show, just to talk about the images.  
The first one they brought up was the video of Harry collapsing.  
“He's been starved,” the gossiper said.  
“Obviously,” the medical doctor said. “Severely so- it must have begun the moment they took him. He's not dead, of course, so they must have fed him enough to sustain life.”  
“The resemblance to a Holocaust victim is...remarkable,” the gossiper said. “If this were black and white, it would look like a concentration camp being saved.”  
“And what about that other boy?” the psychologist asked. “I'm personally more interested in those images released.”  
The screen changed to show the image of Louis in his wheelchair outside the hospital.  
“That's definitely a compound fracture,” the doctor said. “It looks like one that could easily cause permanent damage, he probably won't be dancing at any more concerts.  
“And this one,” he continued. “It's very odd...he looks like he's recovering from being starved.”  
“It is possible that something that Tomlinson did that Styles did not allowed him to be fed more substantially,” the psychologist said. “Reward games are often a tactic of kidnappers.”  
“It's all speculation for now, right?” the gossiper said. “We won't have real insight until the people involved start publishing books.”  
“Of course,” the psychologist said. “I think this boy's expression is also worth noting. It seems as if he's listening to that police officer there speak, and he looks very calm, as if he's not injured.”  
The picture changed, and the show's host apologized.  
“This one is...horrifying, really,” she said. “Viewers with weak stomachs might have to leave or change channels.”  
“That's...” the doctor said dumbly.  
“I'm not a doctor, but that looks...” the gossiper glanced away from the image, a grimace on his face. “Not quite natural.”  
“He's standing on a compound fracture,” the doctor said. “That could easily snap the fibula.”  
“This indicates either a moment of extreme adrenaline, or severe emotional and psychological damage that prevents him from being aware of pain,” the psychologist said. “Either would make sense, but the way he's lunging for that police radio...he might have just heard that Styles was being flown in for emergency heart surgery.”  
“It's rather dramatic,” the gossiper said. “Leaping up and lunging for the radio with a compound fracture just to hear a report about a friend.”  
“The latest reports from inside the hospital suggest that they've called in a psychologist trained for extreme cases from a partner hospital,” the host said.  
“The strange part is,” the gossiper said. “Is that the hospital has someone just like the person they called in...and word is, most of the hospital staff isn't allowed near Styles' room- not because of privacy, but because the boy can't handle their presence. People in nearby rooms report 'bloodcurdling' screaming coming from the room.”  
The next photo was obviously from the building across the street from the hospital. It was zoomed in with a telescopic lens, and had sharp quality.  
The window centered in the shot had its curtains pulled back, allowing a wide view of the room. Louis was leaning on crutches in the center of the window, and he stared down at the street. Behind him, there were two beds. One was perfectly made, and had several books and magazines on its sheets. The second bed was surrounded by medical equipment and had bundles of sheets trashed on the floor around it.  
In the bed lay Harry, his face and body as emaciated as they had been in the video from almost a month before. His sunken eyes stared straight into the camera.  
A small man sat off to the other side, a heavy frown on his face. He was holding a photograph in his hand, and he was leaning towards Harry, trying to get him to look at it.  
“Oh,” the gossiper said. “This one is new. That photo that man is holding looks like it is of Styles' mother, Ann.”  
“He must not be fully cognizant,” the psychologist said. “Something must be wrong, if that man- presumably a doctor- feels it necessary to show Styles images of his immediate family.”  
“Tomlinson looks remarkably healthy,” the doctor said. “On crutches, and obviously regaining weight. He looks almost normal.”  
“Well,” the host said. “That's really all the time we have today. We're all hoping for their safe recovery.”  
Louis turned off the television and swung himself out of bed, grabbing his crutches and heading over to the window, closing the curtains and bathing the room in near darkness.  
He flinched at a noise behind him, and turned slowly to find Harry almost glaring at him.  
“Was that you?” Louis asked, realizing the question was stupid for a multitude of reasons- Harry certainly wouldn't answer, and he was the only one in the room.  
Louis maneuvered himself over to sit on the end of Harry's messy bed, letting his heavy cast dangle off of the end.  
“I know you like looking out the window,” Louis said. “But people were taking pictures of you.”  
Harry didn't respond- he stared blankly at Louis, as if he was the next best thing to look at after the window was out of the question.  
“I think I have to tell the psychologist more about what happened to you,” Louis said. “The doctors already know, from their examinations and interviews, but I don't think Dr. Donohue knows enough to treat you.”

*******************************************************************

It took another month before the various doctors managed to put an official label on Harry. They picked and prodded at all of his issues until they finally were able to stand in Harry's room and list off his problems, one by one.  
“Anxiety, insomnia, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, hyper-vigilance, and some kind of incident-induced anorexia.”  
Another month after that brought him to a more intense recovery center for cognitive behavioral therapy. Louis went with him, convincing Harry's mother to sign papers that put Louis in place as a sort of temporary guardian.  
Louis wasn't allowed in the therapy sessions, but he stayed in Harry's room and escorted him around the facility.  
It was like raising a child from infancy- the first milestone was getting Harry mobile and eating again. It started out with a few weak steps across rooms, a spoonful of applesauce and a sip of water. Anything more than tiny amounts of food made him retch, his stomach not able to keep anything down.  
Then he could walk by himself to his sessions, his catheter was removed, his IV was taken out, and he started gaining weight again. He could eat and walk again.  
The next hurdle was getting him to sleep regularly. That took two weeks of constant focus, with no other problems being dealt with. They managed to get him to sleep for around three hours every night at the end of the two weeks, and the time was increasing all the time.  
Louis talked to Harry constantly- he figured that if nothing else, it would reintroduce the idea of conversation.  
Another three weeks took away Harry's instinct to panic whenever someone resembling Andrea or the men from the basement entered. That accomplishment allowed his family to visit him, and they all left remarking that he looked human again.  
He started responding to speech again- Louis would say something about the other boys, or make a joke, and Harry would actually smile in response. A month later- four months in the center in total- Harry was allowed to leave, proving with a few awkward words and almost-sentences that he could function.  
It wasn't like he'd forgotten how to speak- it was more that he'd forgotten the necessity of it. The first few weeks after he was coerced into speech, he barely said anything more than “No”, “Yes”, and “Hello”.  
The simple words made everyone flinch at first- everyone had forgotten the sound of his voice. Once he seemed to have a self-driven impetus to speak, saying things like “What was that bloke's name at that party a while back?” and “Could I have that apple?” and even “I'll be back, I want a drink”.  
The other boys weren't allowed in the center- it was limited to family visitation only, so when the two finally left the center, the other three were all waiting outside.  
Niall and Liam both hugged Louis and Harry in turn, broad smiles breaking out on their faces when Harry's arms lifted slightly around them. Zayn latched onto Harry violently once both of them had finished, and stepped away with a worried expression on his face, staring at Harry intently.  
“Why are you staring at me?” Harry finally asked.  
The expression broke into a smile, and Zayn shrugged, turning towards Louis to hug him.  
“I'm so glad you're back,” Zayn said, climbing into the car waiting for them.

*******************************************************************

 

The first interview with the entire band back together had record viewership. The fact that one station had managed to wrangle an interview with them was boasted in commercials for days before the event, and millions tuned in.  
When they walked into the large studio, a wide couch waiting for them across from the two hosts' chairs, they entered in single file.  
Liam entered first, dressed in a plain white shirt and black jeans, followed by Niall in similar attire- a gray shirt and dark pants. Zayn came after them, a smaller smile on his face, dressed almost the same as Niall. Louis came next, his hair back to normal, his dark green long-sleeved button down only slightly loose on his nearing-normal frame.  
There was a moment's pause before Harry stumbled out after them, his eyes wide as he took in the wildly applauding audience, filled with colorful signs and excited girls. His hair was the same length as Louis'- a normal length, but nowhere near normal for him. His own shirt was blatantly loose on him, but his face looked considerably less emaciated than in the paparazzi photos from months before. His hand darted out and grabbed a fistful of Louis' shirt as he walked out, and he pulled the older boy back slightly, as if shielding himself.  
They all sat on the couch, trying to look as comfortable as possible.  
“So,” the female host- Susan- said, smiling broadly. “Here you all are.”  
“Here we are,” Liam said. “It's great to be back.”  
“It's wonderful to see all five of you,” the male host- Rick- said, an equally wide smile on his face. “It's been...what, a year and...four months?”  
“Just about,” Zayn said. “It's felt like forever.”  
“Well, let's get down to business,” Susan said. “We've been forewarned against a few questions, but we were told that for the most part, everything should be fine.”  
“We don't want to keep much from our fans,” Louis said. “In the past six months, I've seen all of the efforts they made to try and find us, and they deserve to know the story.”  
An explosion of cheers responded to his words, and he gave a smile out at the crowd.  
“Let's start at the beginning, shall we?” Rick said, shuffling through a few cards. “How on earth did they manage to kidnap you two?”  
“They drugged us,” Louis said. “After breaking into our apartment, of course.”  
“The security cameras were turned off,” Niall said. “That was why there wasn't an investigation for a long time.”  
“And we heard that you three managed to spark that investigation by finding a bit of evidence in Harry's room, right?” Susan asked.  
“Yeah,” Liam said. “Niall and I found a rag covered in chloroform under Harry's bed.”  
“Now, this is the bit that some viewers might not want to listen to,” Susan said. “We were informed that there was some...torture while you two were in captivity?”  
Louis glanced over at Harry briefly, checking to make sure that he was still calm and vaguely happy looking.  
“I'll tell you all what I told the police officers,” Louis said. “We were branded, first of all.”  
Louis pulled up the corner of his shirt, showing the numbers on his hip. “We were whipped, starved, dehydrated, beaten, psychologically tortured, forced to fight dogs, attacked by dogs, and sprayed by hoses.”  
“Oh, my god,” Susan said, her perfectly lipsticked mouth opening in shock. “That's unbelievable!”  
“What exactly do you mean by psychological torture?”  
“They'd hold a gun to one of our heads to force the other person to do things,” Louis said.  
“What would you say was the worst part?” Susan asked. “Out of everything, what was unbearable?”  
“I don't want to talk about the worst part,” Louis said, letting his hand fall onto Harry's knee. “I'm sorry.”  
“Well, that's completely all right, of course!” Susan said. “We'll move on...we were infomred that there was a second location involved?”  
“Yes, after eight months we were moved to a couple's home, where they were...preparing us to be bought. I started regaining weight there, but Harry wouldn't eat.”  
“Now, that seems odd,” Rick said. “Harry, why didn't you eat?”  
Harry looked up from the floor, startled.  
“They want to know why you didn't eat,” Louis repeated quietly.  
“I don't know,” Harry said slowly. “I wasn't really...cognizant.”  
“So you were in...a trance?” Susan asked.  
Harry glanced at Louis, uncomfortable.  
“They wanted us to become docile,” Louis said. “They managed it with Harry, and I pretended to be after they started r-”  
“What?” Susan asked. “You didn't finish.”  
“It isn't for me to say,” Louis said. “That was the worst part, I think.”  
“They'd rape me,” Harry said suddenly, making everyone in the studio take in a sudden breath.  
“Harry,” Louis said. “You don't have to...”  
“I just remembered,” Harry said. “They'd rape me, and they didn't stop until Louis stopped talking and resisting them.”  
Susan struggled for words for a few moments. “An- and what was happening back home, for you three?” she asked finally, turning towards Zayn, Liam, and Niall.  
“We were really obnoxious towards the police department,” Liam said. “Trying to get the investigation going, you know?”  
“Were the concerts you three did...upsetting?” Rick asked. “We all saw that video of the moment of silence.”  
“They were awful,” Niall said. “We didn't want Harry and Louis to come back to nothing, so we had to keep up appearances, and act happy.”  
“I'm assuming by 'that video' you mean the time I flipped out on that girl,” Zayn said. “I was just really angry that she wouldn't respect the moment of silence we were having. Our two closest friends, our brothers, were missing, and the girl cared more about herself.”  
“Are you five going to continue as a band?” Susan asked. “We'd all love that.”  
“It's all up to Louis and Harry,” Liam said.  
“I haven't sung since we were taken,” Harry said. “I don't think Louis has, either.  
“But if people can stand us being out of tune for a few months, then yeah, I'm up for it,” Harry said. “I miss it.”  
“I'm all for it,” Louis said. “But yeah, I'm a bit out of practice.”  
“I'm sure you'll both slip right back into it beautifully,” Susan said. “Do you mind telling us about the rescue?”  
“I'd actually like to make a bit of a shout out, if you don't mind,” Louis said.  
“Of course, go ahead,” Rick said.  
“A lot of fans of ours started campaigns in their towns to spread the word about our disappearance, and did things like make posters of our faces to put up and asked people to scan crowds...well I wanted to tell everyone that if those campaigns hadn't been done, I would be dead right now. A girl named Helen Garrond started a poster campaign, and her mom had to take her to the library to make prints of the posters. Her mom happens to be a police officer, and she happened to pull over the car that was taking me to be killed for speeding, and she recognized me. If Helen hadn't been printing those posters, her mom wouldn't have recognized me, that car would have driven away, and I would be dead today. So I want to say a special thank you to Helen, and a thank you to everyone else who started campaigns.”  
“That's an amazing story,” Susan said. “It's wonderful to think that people had such an impact.  
“Well, it's been a pleasure speaking to you boys, and we hope that everything goes wonderfully for all of you from now on.”

*******************************************************************

 

Most of the signs in the crowd said things like 'Welcome back' and 'Five boys, One Direction' rather than 'Fuck me'.  
The five boys stood on the stage in line, staring out at the filled stadium.  
“I never thought that we could ever return to this,” Louis said, his voice booming over the cacophony in the stadium. “I'd given up on this idea, and I thought that we were going to die. But here we are, and I can't thank all of you enough.”  
“Hello,” Harry said, his voice softer than Louis'. “It's been a... while. I'm sorry... if I'm not the same person I was... before. But regardless... of who I am now, it's good... to be back.”

*******************************************************************

 

(Alternate endings start here)

1-

“Harry,” Zayn said, ducking into the small dressing room Harry had slipped into after the concert.  
“Zayn,” Harry said, glancing up from the ground. He sat on a tiny makeup table, his legs swinging below him. “You haven't spoken to me hardly at all.”  
“I'm afraid that we'll lose you again,” Zayn said quietly, leaning on the corner of the table. “I'm scared, Harry.”  
“They're not going to take us again,” Harry said, folding his hands together.  
“I don't mean like that,” Zayn said, turning towards Harry. “I mean...what if you stop talking again? What if the PTSD gets worse and never really leaves?”  
Harry shrugged. “It doesn't really matter.”  
“It matters to me!” Zayn exclaimed, standing up and jostling the table. “I just don't want to get close to you again if you're just going to slip back into that conscious coma!”  
“Zayn,” Harry said, slipping off of the table. “That will only happen if we don't become close again.”  
“But what if it does happen?” Zayn asked, hugging his chest. “What if I lose you?”  
“You won't let that happen,” Harry said, pulling Zayn's hands away from his torso.  
“I'm not strong,” Zayn protested, stepping away from Harry. “I fell apart when you were gone! I had to sleep in your bed! I yelled at girls in concerts, I couldn't even think straight!”  
“If we have each other,” Harry said slowly. “Neither of us will fall apart.”  
“There's no guarantee,” Zayn said, shaking his head.  
“We'll be our guarantee. If neither of us let the other fall, we won't fall apart,” Harry said, reaching out and doing his best to push Zayn's matted hair away from his forehead. “Trust me.”  
“I trust you, Harry,” Zayn said, wrapping his arms around the skinny boy. “I don't trust myself.”

*******************************************************************

 

2-   
Louis knocked tentatively on the room that Harry'd cloistered himself off to. He heard a light answer that he took the liberty of assuming to be a “come in” and entered.  
Harry was sitting on the ground, his hair draped over the corner of the table he was leaning on.  
“Louis!” he said, a trace of enthusiasm leaking into his voice as he stood up.   
“How are you doing?” Louis asked carefully, stepping closer to Harry, ready to support him if he got weak.   
“Pretty good,” Harry answered. “Not our best concert by a long-shot, though, huh?”  
“I think they'll forgive us,” Louis said. “They have a soft spot for us.”  
“Do you think I'll ever be back to normal again?” Harry asked, slumping against the wall behind him. “What if I'm never me again?”  
“You've been you all along,” Louis said quietly, shuffling his feet against the floor. “You've just had some different burdens on you.”  
“I don't feel like me,” Harry said. “Even now.”  
“You're still the Harry I know and love,” Louis said, doing his best to smile happily. “Just because you don't like to talk as much or because you're a little tired doesn't mean you're not Harry.”  
“I feel empty inside,” Harry said, shaking his head. “I feel like everything I do is just a movement made by a puppeteer above my head. I don't care about anything.”  
Louis swallowed, his throat dry. “Harry.”  
“I'm not me!” Harry exclaimed, pushing off of the wall, towards Louis. “I'm just a terrible copy.”  
Louis blinked, seeing in Harry's eyes how much he believed his words. Louis leaned into him on impulse, meeting Harry's lips with his own. Harry stumbled back slightly, shifting his weight onto a different foot, but didn't break away.  
Louis pulled back, letting his eyes drift across Harry's face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were wide, staring back at Louis like a startled deer.  
“What did you do that for?” Harry asked, his voice shaking.  
“You're Harry,” Louis said. “You're my Harry. And I'm going to make you feel like you are.”


End file.
